Cold Bronze
by Jonas Grant
Summary: A Mora of Lacedaemonian warriors -Spartans- find themselves within Skyrim, as part of a Dwemer machination, and decide to rebuild Sparta. Doesn't sit well with pretty much everyone, but they're not in the business of making friends, never were.
1. Chapter 1

_Philip II of Macedon, with key Greek city-states in submission, turned his attention to Sparta and sent a message:_

_"If I win this war, you will be slaves forever."_

_In another version, Philip proclaims:_

_"You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city."_

_According to both accounts, the Spartans sent back a one word reply:_

_"If."_

**Sparta**

**September 21**

**477 BC**

**12:55**

There are times in a warrior's life when has to back down. No matter how deeply ingrained upon him it has been to never give, to never bow to the enemy, no matter that it is the law. There are foes so formidable, so merciless no wise men would fight them.

Spartan women are one such relentless adversary, so when my mother tells me that I will volunteer to go in Athen, I do not ask why, I do not try to argue; I take one last spoonful of soup, get up and grab my armor.

She laughs and tell me I can at least finish eating. Good, there are very few things in life I really enjoy, but my mother's 'Black soup' is one of them, so I sit back and resume eating while considering what I am about to get myself into.

Athen… Last time I saw the city was two years ago, after King Leonidas' death in the Thermopylae, the Presians had pushed all the way to the city and . My mora and I were stationed at the Peloponnesian Peninsula, charged with defending it from the invaders while letting refugees trough -Athen would owe us a huge favor for this-.

Except the enemy never came.

I took us quite some time to realize that and much less to punish the Persian ground forces while the Athenian navy did the same at sea. Glorious. Bloody, but glorious.

A year after the death of our king, the last Persian on Greek soil was turned into ash atop a burning pile of his kind. It has been a year since my brothers and I have not fought a single battle and now the Athenian messenger finally convinced the _ephors_ to send a few warriors investigate the reports of steel spiders crawling around the country side.

I will not go alone, even though Plataea proved to everyone how deadly Spartans were even outside their phalanx, it was decided a group of thirty warriors should be sent with some _helots_ and provisions for a few week.

Marcus will be _Enomotarch_ and I will act as his _Phylearch_, which means I will be in charge of half the phalanx. Will be strange to serve under him again after so long, the only occasion he had to give me orders were during our daily war games and practice.

Behind me, Dionae enters the house, moving slowly in a vain attempt to sneak up on me. Her tiny feet barely make any sound at all, but I was trained not to let anyone take me by surprise and have the scars to prove it.

She pounces and I spin of my chair in time to grab the back of her head and dip her face in the bowl of cooked blood and liver. There is not much left, but enough for her to get some in her ears.

"Hello, little one." I greet, and she immediately answers;

"Hewo Ashos!"

"Athos, stop it…" I immediately let my sister go and take a step back just as my mother emerges from the kitchen, towel in hand.

That woman should have been a prophet, she can always tell what I am doing sometimes before I think about doing it.

I once asked her how she did and she answered that she had been trained just as thoroughly as I was, just not for the same purpose.

My little sister is thirteen years old and just tall enough to kick a man in the groin, which I saw her do on many occasions to some of her most annoying pretenders.

Those I did not have to threaten of a slow and painful agony, anyway.

She take my mother's towel and wipe the soup off her face.

"I'll get you some day!" She vows.

I smile and ruffle her hairs, "You will; once I'm old and senile!"

"You're already old!" she laughs once I sit back, taking he own seat to my right.

"I tuned twenty-one last month, Dio, that's not old by any standard…"

"It is by mine!" She counters, before taking a bite into the piece of meat our mother puts in front of her. I simply continue.

"It is barely one fourth of my active military career…"

"That you spend sitting here and playing with your friends." She does have a point there…

"Well," I begin, trying to find a fault in that, before remembering the main subject, "I am still not old."

"If he is old, what am I?" mother points out, looking falsely insulted.

"You're my mother! Mothers don't grow old…"

"We just shrink and wrinkle?"

"Exactly!"

I scoff at the outburst but a lifetime in the military has taught me when to keep quiet.

Before the conversation can be carried further, however, I hear Marcus call his men to form up in the city center.

We are leaving, it seems.

I take a few seconds to put on my armor and helmet, then find my swords and finally take my shield from my mother.

"With it or on it," She reminds me, "And please try not to bring back any… Mementos, this time."

I laugh and nod. "This time I shall bring you flowers, then."

At Plataea, I used my shield to crush a Persian's skull and a large chunk of skin and hair got caught in a tiny crack, on the side.

I tried to get the thing out after the battle, but it was too slippery for me to get a good grip.

By the time I made it back to Sparta, the flesh had almost rotten away and smelled, let's say, quite strongly.

I sling the thing in my back and kiss my mother, ruffling Dionae's hairs some more on the way out.

Outside, in the center of town, Marcus is fighting with his spear, trying to find a soft spot on the ground to dig it in.

I pick up my own spear from against the wall and walk up to my comrade and commander.

He smiles upon seeing me and gives me a solid warrior handshake that almost huts my wrist.

Marcus is the strongest Hoplite I ever met, but also the slowest, which means by the time I had earned seven kills at Plataea, he was still in mid charge.

He quickly compensated, however, and finished the fight with his two swords shattered, his spear destroyed beyond any use and his shield bent inward.

By the day's end, Marcus had scored a hundred and seventy-two confirmed kills.

I barely got pass the hundred, but it is not important. We won.

Aeimnestus, Kratos and Demetrius are the only others I fought with, the rest are fresh warriors who just graduated from the reserve.

They are young and never faced battle, but every Spartan has had to fight for survival ever since we were child, so none are what we could call inexperienced.

I throw my spear on my back and hang my arms to it while watching the helots load our provisions in backpacks. Half the slaves are female and scrawny, crumbling under the huge packs. The ephors gave us whatever they could spares and I am not complaining, but these helots will not survive the trip this way.

Now, I do not feel bad for the weaklings, but I cannot fight and cook at the same time.

"Men!" I order my part of the phalanx, take as many bags as you can carry."

No discussion; they grab the provisions and imitate me when I hang four of the bags to my spear. In addition to my armor and weapons, it becomes quite hard to move, but I love challenges.

Marcus does the same thing, taking five bags. Most of his men follow suit, but there is not enough provisions for all of them, so many hurry and fetch maintenance tools, spare javelins, spears and swords, a few even bring spare shields. Two of them grab portable blacksmith equipment that usually requires a horse or mule to move.

Now carrying supplies for three to four times our number, we set off on the path for Athen. Looking at my brothers, I can see the shadows of smiles under their helmets and decide to add some challenge.

"Spartans, the first one to fall from exhaustion will be making camp for the rest of the trip."

There's actually a few eager chuckles at that and Marcus bumps my shoulder.

"You realize none of them will stop until we get to Athen?"

I nod, "If the battle does not make it into history, the way we got to it surely will."

The Enomotarch smiles and re-assure his grip on the spear. The thing is so heavy it dented the neck part of his helmet.

0

0

0

Athen's Outskirts

477BC

September 30

00:55

I suppress a yawn and massage my painful neck.

Ahead, Marcus and his men are lying in the high grass, ready to rush at the first sign of the strange light.

My men are waiting just behind him with javelins, ready to bring the rear and cover the phalanx's advance.

Then, once we're out of javelins, the plan is to rush in and flank the enemy formation by forming a pair of micro phalanx.

Then we kill anything that's not a Spartan…

Except the slave we use as bait, anyway… She doesn't seem so scared, interestingly, just sitting there next to the fire and knotting blades of grass into tiny baskets that she discards into the fire as soon as they're done.

Maybe she knows having Spartans watching over you means that you WILL see the sun rise again.

Suddenly, she gets up and spin on herself, horrified.

"It's in the grass!" Is all she manages before being dragged away in the night, screaming.

The moon is very bright and I manage to pick out the trail the girl leaves in the grass as she is being dragged away. My javelin whistles angrily on its way.

It hits something and sticks at an agrle of forty-five degrees, a meter above the ground and half of it sticking out of the ground.

Lightning ripple along its handle for a few seconds, then the weapon disappears in the tall grass.

Marcus and his group begin their organized charge, covering themselves behind their shield as they approach the area where my javelin was last seen.

I admit being a little startled when the helot rises above the grass, javelin in hand, and uses it to stab something on the ground twice. She then give it a hard kick that causes a loud metallic sound and a lot of pain, from her ensuing curses.

Marcus orders her to join my line and bring the javelin, before continuing his charge, spear held ready and sandals crushing the grass. His phalanx is a wall of solid bronze and pointy sticks. Anything that stands before them stands as much chance as a snail in an avalanche.

The _helot_ does not wait for an invitation and is by my side in seconds, despite the fifty meters between us.

She hands me my javelin and study the tip. It was bent by whatever armor the enemy wore, almost pointing backward now… Impressive, but not unique, many cultures have created metals harder than bronze, but they always face the same problem; too brittle.

I straighten the tip with my thumb and hand the weapon back to the woman, who seems intrigued.

"You earned a weapon." I explain. She hesitates. "I'm a Warrior, not an ephor, I don't play mind games."

She finally takes the javelin and holds it close. She reminds me of Dionae, her face and all… I can't help but think the only difference between us is that was born to fight and her to serve. We are both slaves to our nations.

Unlike Marcus and the others, I feel no contempt for the helots because of their rank, only because of their weakness and the fact they let us push them around like cattle.

Marcus' voice brings me back to the scene ahead. "Athos, come look at this…"

I move forward with my twelve warriors by my side, holding a perfect line and with out shield intertwined. No quite big enough to be a real phalanx, but close.

We cross the distance quickly and I find Marcus, Kratos and Demetrius kneeling next to something that seems to be no more than a large lump of brass.

Then, it turns a lone eye pink to me and flails its skeletal arms in a vain attempt to… whatever does it think it will do if it somehow reaches me? Shake hands? Tickle? In any event, it is not moving, its legs laying around uselessly.

The thing has a cylindrical abdomen connected to four boxy legs pointing away from each others, along with two tiny arms, near the 'head', a pink gem.

The javelin seems to have crippled it, as it remains still even as Kratos pokes it with his shorts word.

"Can you make it talk?" I look at Marcus, then at the prisoner, before finally asking:

"Can it talk?"

The hoplite shrugs. "Find out."

Great… The others form a circle around me while I dig my spear in the ground to initiate a dialogue. I speak Celtiberian, Latin, Helenian and a few dialects from the north. Let us see what we can find out.

"Who are you? Why do you take peoples away? Do you understand me?" No answer.

After I try every language I know without a single reaction, we must face it, that thing either speaks every languages I tried or none of them, since it showed no particular signs of understanding at any point.

The helots have long since set up camp around us and are preparing it for the night. I hope we are not actually going to stay here, this thing might have had friends.

"So?" Marcus asks, leaning against my spear.

"It's not talking." I draw my short sword. The Enomotarch nods and I dig it in the thing's eye. Immediately, I feel an atrocious burn along my forearm and quickly pull my blade out, lightings rippling along my arm.

The pain quickly subsides, replaced by a throbbing and slight numbness.

Let us not do that again.

I am about to tell the others what happened when I realize my feet are no longer on the ground and I am floating. I look up and am blinded by an intense blue light.

"Spartans!" I hear Marc call, "Ready yourselves for battle!"

I kick around to face our leader and he tosses me my spear, already holding his ready.

All around us, Spartans are holding their shield and spears in readiness for the contact with whatever has assaulted us. There are also pieces of the camp being brought along, floating freely around us.

I snatch the spear from the air and place myself in combat position, braced for impact same as when I charged the Persians.

Whatever the enemy is, it will bleed before the last Lacedaemonian has fallen.


	2. Chapter 2

"_Spartans were taught to say a lot with a few words. Children learned a habit of long silence, so that when they finally spoke, their words had weight and were noticed._

_For example, an Athenian joked that sword-swallowers used Spartan swords because they were so short, and a Spartan replied: "We find them long enough to reach the hearts of our enemies." __**Plutarch**_

The world spins around us, a maze of blue and purple bubbling and screaming like a flooded torrent. My spear is ready and my shield as well, but there is no enemy, nothing to focus on, to fight back against.

My legs are batting the air, looking something to lean on, but there is nothing but void.

My mother once told me not to fight things I cannot change for it wastes strength that could be used on fighting that which can be changed. I thought it was a cowardly way of thinking, back then, now I understand; it means follow the caravan until you can gut the one running it.

My shield rests by my side and my spear remains close to me as I soar forward like a bird.

I saw birds hit rock walls. Hope this is not what awaits me.

Golden shapes surround me in the vertiginous haze. My phalanx is still by my side.

"Marcus!" I roar over the screeching that envelops us.

A shape shifts and an answer comes; "Still alive! What is it?"

"It seems someone has gotten wind of your adventure with Athena's priestress!" I doubt whatever is abducting us now can actually be the goddess of wisdom. Firstly because I do not believe in that crazy nonsense, and secondly because the goddess of wisdom would never be so unwise as to anger thirty Lancedaemonians.

"So long as my mother does not find out!"

Something hits me hard across the chest, a bag of meat wrapped in cheap clothing and holding a pointy stick.

The bait, the _helot_ I gave my javelin to. She's upside down and rolled into a tight ball. Or maybe I'm the one whose's upside down and stiff as a spear. Doesn't matter. I spin her around so we're face to face, not heel to chin and look into her eyes.

Won't be easy, they're squeezed shut.

She reminds me of my sister when she's had a nightmare.

Yes, Spartan children also have nightmares.

"Nothing to fear!" I announce to the terrified kid, "Just relax and enjoy the journey." She opens her eyes and looks at me, looking much less shaken than I expected.

"You are insane!" She sounds surprised.

Marcus roars something about getting ready and I echo his order. He felt in his guts that we are getting close and I trust in my Enomotarch's instincts.

At this speed, I cannot say if we will survive the fall, but if we do, then whoever is responsible for this will realize not all Helenians are weaklings.

The _Helot _curls back into a ball and I keep my body straight but limp, to prepare myself for impact.

I fell great heights in my youth, and broke many bones, but the lesson paid off and I soon learned how to fall adequately.

Now I feel it. A shift in the flow, subtle, but noticeable. Something is parting the… Water? Whatever it is, we're almost out, that much is obvious, we can feel the shore rushing to meet us.

It is not sand, but tall grass, as far as the eye can see, there is nothing but tall grasses just like the ones we just left. There is no sign of the others, no sign anyone has ever been here before me.

The sky is grey and a thick fog hangs in the air. No treeline, no city lights, no road. We're nowhere near Athen anymore.

"Spartans!" A rough voice cuts through the fog, somewhere behind me, "Regroup on me!"

It is certainly not Marcus, but the voice speaks with the accents of authority, so I obey and march in that direction, crouched behind my shield, spear at the ready and eyes wide open. The farther I advance, the thicker the mist becomes, first hiding the far away valleys, then the edges of the field and, soon enough, the tip of my spear.

I remain calm despite the fear that knots my stomach and grips my guts. It is simply fog, water. Water that could hide a whole army, but still, water.

There is movement around me, cautious steps in the grass and bronze rubbing on bronze. More Spartans.

"Marcus?" I hiss under my breath, hoping I do not attract anything hungry.

"Aye, brother," the Enomotarch is somewhere to my left, close, by the sound of it. "You killed anything yet?" His voice is more eager than worried. Marcus enjoys the killing, I enjoy the fighting, we are very different.

"No, but I seek to rectify this soon."

He scoffs and we close the distance between each others. I can hear him, but do not see his spear until it clatters on my shield. We move as one from that point, no need to see the other to know our flank is now covered. We simply make sure our footsteps beat with the same rhythm.

The man calls all the Spartans once again, he is getting closer.

Cold water wraps around my feet, Marcus's as well, judging from the quiet splashing to my left. We soon find ourselves with water to our knees, but still move on, sandals digging in the sticky sand.

It tries to suck our feet in, helped by the bulk of our equipment, but the Enomotarch and I keep a steady pace. Time is strange when you are expecting a fight, it seems to forget to flow for a while, then try to catch up, as if Chronos himself was anxious to see what happens to warriors.

We walk here for what seems like a long time, but could easily have been a few minutes, seeing as the lighting does not shift in the slightest

"By Zeus, I should run more." The exhausted voice came from my right, it's Leonas, one of the best javelin thrower of our _mora_, he has much strength in the upper body but always find himself lacking when it comes to footwork.

I call him, my voice low, but not a whisper. He does not answer, but I soon have to dodge the tip of his spear. "Watch it, Spartan." I hiss, re-orienting his weapon in the same direction as mine.

"Apologies. This mist is thicker than my wife's…"

"Do not finish that sentence. Please." Marcus seems to always assume the worst of people. He is oftentimes right, now that I think of it.

The voice continues calling us, not urgent, but not tiring, like a mother calling her childs for dinner.

Whoever is calling us has no doubt we are coming.

The splashing gets monotonous and I have a very short attention span, so I soon find myself drifting back to Plataea. Eighty men found their death by my hand that day, an impressive number, even for a Spartan. I feel no pride for it, this victory would have felt just as good had it been won without a single death, but men have to die for a battle to be fought, otherwise, war would be just another expensive game.

It may be a good thing that war is so horrible, otherwise the mighty and the rich would grow quite fond of it.

My ears feel strange for a moment, pulsing as if I had climbed down a slope too fast. A short yawn solves that.

"What was that?" Leonas' surprised cry makes me shut my jaw and open my eyes, just in time to spot a large cross shaped shadow disappearing overhead.

"Phalanx?" I hiss, lifting my shield and spear to the sky.

"Turtle." Marcus corrects.

I can feel weak currents around my shin guards as we get into a triangular formation, each of us facing toward one of the edges, and move forward. A spear pokes me in the lower back, but I ignore the thing and hold my own weapon aimed at the sky.

"Gargoyle?" Leonas breathe, sounding genuinely intrigued by the identity of that thing.

To be honest, I do not care what it is, but I hope it is killable and edible. I tell him just as much.

The water we soon find ourselves with water above our ankles and walking on more solid ground. By my experience, the enemy will most likely wait for us to feel safe to strike, even predators in the wild are fond of that technique. Marcus knows that and Leonas is an accomplished hunter, so I keep it to myself.

"Down!" The word resonates in my ears, clear as crystal, but deafening in the thick silence.

We all duck just as a screaming monstrosity swoops down with a snapping of jaws and roar of anger.

Three javelins whistle trough the mist immediately afterward. The creature roars in pain as a result.

"Hope we stuck them in your…" Leonas stops his gleeful shouting, apparently perplex about something.

"Who shouted?" It was not me, nor Marcus. The voice was old and it spoke in a Breton dialect I understand without speaking fluently.

"Me did!" A bright blue ball of light rips through the fog and allows us to see one another.

A blue fire torch? I've seen a few powders from China and Mongolia who could make a fire burn blue, but the ball seems to be floating in midair.

Walking behind it, a man, clad in complex purple robes, walks up to us casually.

"Me is Adam Dupré, maybe you heard me?" I am not exactly the best linguist around. I simply found that I enjoyed reading texts and legends written by other nations, so translating spoken words is far more complex than just reading them then looking up their meaning in a dictionary.

"We heard you." I confirm, hesitantly. Exchanging a glance with Marcus. His eyes are obscured by the helmet, but his body language speaks volume. He has no trust for the man and the fact he does not understand a single thing Adam said does nothing to help.

I translate to the best of my ability and Marcus asks if he knows what that creature was.

"Dovah." The word is whispered, as if it should tell me anything. It does not.

"Can it die?" Marcus has very clear priorities; kill the thing, then find out what it is. I agree with him on that.

"Not by us."

If Spartans cannot kill something, then it cannot die. Easy as that.

We move on with the Breton behind us. He carries no weapon, so I suppose he is not a warrior. Might be a healer or a philosopher.

"Spartans! I can see you now!" The voice announces, now closer than ever, "One last effort and you will be safe!" The voice is familiar, it is not the Regent nor the King, but I cannot help but associate it with kinghood. An _Ephor_, perhaps? "Run, Spartans, he comes!"

We obey and break into a sprint, shields raised in case something is hidden in the mist. Adam is close on our heels, his light ripping the fog like fire melting parchment.

"Jump!" The order comes a second before I see the cliff. I would love to stop and reconsider following that order, but the Dovah is screaming at my back and my brothers both made the jump already, so I follow and hope I get to take more insane decisions after this one.

0

0

0

King Leonidas picked up a puzzle from the desk, not knowing or caring that the delicate object was meant as display only.

It was a set of concentric golden spheres with a rock, a diamond, trapped within. One could only turn each sphere in a precise way and turning one would shift the four others.

The only way to release the rock within was to align a set of holes in the spheres, doing so within a day required a good grasp of physics and mathematics, but the puzzle could take weeks for an average person to complete.

He began fiddling with the thing hesitantly, turning the inner spheres so they aligned with each others, then turning to the outside one and ruining his recent effort. The warrior's brows furrowed and his posture suggested he was already loosing patience.

"Dwemers, eh?" The warrior-king finally spoke, "Never heard of your kind."

The bearded, pointy eared man sitting behind the rock desk bared his teeth in a poor imitation of a smile.

"I know you haven't, and you most likely never will. I am but an echo, left to complete a task my kind has left behind long ago. As soon as my job is complete, I will return to oblivion. Get some well earned respite."

The puzzle groaned and rattled under Leonidas' abuses. The king had little patience for games… This included the puzzle and the Dwemer's. "What do you want?"

The Dwarf shrugged. "I want nothing, you are here, you used to be there, you were dead, now you live. To me, knowing my experiment has succeeded is reward enough.

"But?" The king could have broken the puzzle and taken the stone, but that was hardly sporting. Same as he could have beaten some answer out of the old blue guy. Dead or not, if it can still move, you can cut off its limbs.

"But I realize dumping you in the world like that would be inconsiderate of me, so I summoned more." The man's smile was genuine this time. He liked the idea, to have Spartans walking across Tamriel amused him.

"How many?" Leonidas did not sound eager or angry, he just stood there in the dusty office fiddling with a puzzle he could not possibly solve without at least some measure of Dwemer education.

This brought some serious doubt in his host. Maybe the great hero of Sparta was really just a fool.

"A bit over five hundred. I did not want you to come in understrength or to overload your work charge, they are now walking the mists of Sovnguarde, I suppose, waiting for someone to show them the way out..."

The Spartan had no answer to that. His manipulation of the puzzle grew slower, more precise.

The Dwemer scientist –his ghost, anyway- only smiled like a father watching his child play with a wooden sword, pretending to fight invisible monsters.

"Not all of them were dead, I'm afraid, some had to be… Invited." The old man was quite proud of his accomplishment, he had the eyes of a man who is in control. He had succeeded in bringing beings from another Mundus into Tamriel and he had made sure the beings would cause a maximum of fuss while they were at it.

This would be a very interesting experiment, although the Spartans were too archaic, too primitive to survive long in the brutal world of Tamriel, they were aggressive and organized enough to shake the power balance of the world.

"I better go fetch them, in that case." The king shook the puzzle and a shiny pellet fell to the floor.

Leonidas was already out of the room by the time the Dwarven scientist understood.

The pellet, that object the king had left to the floor like it was mere trash, was a diamond. Back in its place, on the desk, the puzzle itself was empty, its four holes lined up neatly.

The Dwemer ghost was not smiling anymore.

**A/N: Ozymandeous: Yeah, was written a long time ago, decided to recycle it, but didn't clean it up enough before I did :S**


End file.
